KEY POINTS:
It's the sight we knew was coming, but always hoped we'd never actually see.
Robbie Deans, out on some Australian paddock, guiding his green-and-gold charges through a training session.
(Or in this case blue-and-gold, the colours of the latest Australian training strip.)
It happened for the first time at Manly Oval last night, with the former Crusaders guru and All Blacks coaching contender putting the Wallaby squad through their paces on a wintry and wet Sydney evening.
Observers noted Deans was looking very comfortable in his brand new Wallabies tracksuit and cap.
A bit too comfortable, we feel, this side of the ditch.
Canterbury's favourite son wasted no time getting down to business with his 30-man Aussie squad, named just a day before at a press conference in the city.
Holding a half-hour team meeting before the training session, Deans got straight into tactics, discussing offensive and defensive patterns with captain Stirling Mortlock and other leaders amongst the squad.
When the players jogged out onto the damp field shortly afterwards, it marked a watershed moment in Australian rugby, with Deans being the first foreigner to coach the national team.
Deans wasted no time putting his personal touch on the training routines.
Those who have observed Crusaders' training sessions in the past would have noted a similarity between some of the practice drills regularly used by the red and blacks and the moves on view last night.
No doubt all eyes on both sides of the Tasman will be watching closely as Deans and his coaching cohorts Jim Williams and Michael Foley prepare the Wallabies for that date which should be burned into rugby fans' calendars - July 26, the day of the opening Bledisloe Cup test in Sydney.
Winning in Sydney has never been an easy assignment for the All Blacks and a sellout crowd of hysterical Aussies is a virtual certainty.
The series swings back to Auckland a week later on August 2, followed by a raft of Tri-Nations fixtures involving the Boks before the third Bledisloe test in Brisbane on September 13.
Then comes the oddity of that one-off Bledisloe Test in Hong Kong on November 1. Another first - a Bledisloe match played on neutral turf - that only marketing people could have invented. For the love of the game? Or, maybe, the love of money?
However, it does serve to stretch the Bledisloe Cup series out to four matches - and since a drawn series favours the holder, it means Deans' challenge to lift the trophy aloft in 2008 goes from "tough" to "well nigh impossible". He needs, simply, to win 3 out of 4.
Surely, even the most rabid Wallabies supporter would be dreaming to imagine that happening.
All sorts of questions remain as yet unanswered. Can Graham Henry sort out a new midfield? Can the All Blacks erase the memories of 2007?
How will Deans reshape the halves to overcome the loss of the wonderful duo of George Gregan and Stephen Larkham? And can he build a competitive scrum in time?
So maybe the next few months will see those questions answered and settle some immediate trans-tasman bragging rights.
For many, though, the real issues won't be settled until 2011.
